What Makes a Good Learning Game?
Going beyond edutainment
By Simon Egenfeldt-Nielsen
February 4, 2011
After developing more than 30 learning games I can safely say that it is definitely not an easy task. Developing good learning games requires constant attention to opposing factors, which only through creativity can truly be made to smoothly work together.
Since the inception of computer games, there has been learning games. In the early years, games were used to demonstrate the potential benefits of computers. Although learning games date back to at least the 1960s, it is still a discipline fraught with challenges [1]. One of the fundamental questions that remain unanswered is: What really makes a good learning game? This simple question is far from trivial as it might be seem upon first sight. The question relates to what we define as a good game and what we define as good learning—none of which have been fully answered.
This article is not be a quick-guide for "how to design" learning games with ideas like points, leveling, power-ups and clear goals. Rather it will present a helicopter view on what often happens when you apply these principles and ignore the fundamental structure of games. You may very well create a learning game that is motivating, and uses level and feedback in some ways, but still fail miserable. This often happens because designers are not conscious of how games are fundamentally structured. They forget games are about "what you do" and not "what you see." Instructional designers apply game principles but forget to step back and see whether these principles distort the learning experience. Often this happens by failing to integrate game and learning goals, losing sight of the difference between seeing and doing, and accidentally derailing the player away from learning in favor of pure fun. When you use very simple principles from games in your e-learning applications the risk of distortion is less, unlike when designing more complex, game-based learning applications.
The Critique of Edutainment
Let's go beyond the traditional edutainment games that can be characterized as low-budget, student-centric, skills-based games exhibiting simple gameplay, somewhat dated graphics, and simplistic underlying learning theories. Such games have been criticized for failing to integrate the learning experience and game experience while lacking intrinsic motivation, which is a crucial part of a successful computer game [2].
We need to extend the scope of learning games beyond edutainment. Seymour Papert's humorous quote points to edutainment games that exhibit both flawed game design and conservative learning theories:
"Most of what goes under the name 'edutainment' reminds me of George Bernard Shaw's response to a famous beauty who speculated on the marvelous child they could have together: "With your brains and my looks..." He retorted, "But what if the child had my looks and your brains?" [3] —Seymour Papert (p. 88)
Thomas Malone laid the foundation for criticism in the 1980s, when he identified a lack of intrinsic motivation and the limited integration of learning and games [4]. The reliance on drill-and-practice learning principles, which have and continue to dominate edutainment titles, can be added to this critique. Although drill-and-practice is a sound learning principle, it limits the domains of knowledge where we can use learning games—often the delivery of quite simple information. Usually, drill-and-practice learning entails we end up of with quite simple games that are lacking when compared with entertainment games.
The path to answering the question "What is a good learning games?" requires that we dig a little deeper into the concepts of games and learning.
Defining Games and Learning
The first precondition is to conceive what a game is: I define computer games as virtual worlds with a conflict. Virtual worlds are finite, rule-based problem-spaces that offer players different means to solve problems with a precise feedback and reward system.
Inspired by the work of Raph Koster, I talk of games as consisting of verbs and substantives [5]. This is a crucial distinction to understand not only what makes a game a game, but what makes it good. Furthermore, this distinction will help us focus on the elements where games differentiate themselves from other learning forms.
The starting point for most games is substantives, which make up the story and the environment. But verbs are what you can actually do in the story and environment. You can say substantives set the scene. You can have a game with a tree, car, boat, robber and cop, but before you add verbs it is nothing more than a representation. The substantives have a purpose. They set the initial stage, make actions meaningful, and add, in general, more immersion. They draw in the player by setting the scene, explaining the universe, and providing the background story. The substantives make your actions matter—they are required for the verbs to works, even if the substantives are sometimes very limited. Take the somewhat abstract ghosts in "Pac-man or the vivid big-city mafia in "Grand Theft Auto". However some of the games considered to be the very soul of gaming stand out for their almost complete lack of substantives. Instead they herald the core of games to do something! Tetris is a prime example; it is almost completely void of substantives. In Tetris the turning of blocks makes up the core gameplay, the verbs. The substantives are basically different forms of blocks.
So why are verbs important? Games are about making decisions, what will you do next, It is about seeing consequences, and receiving feedback on your actions. It is also about getting rewards from your actions, and it's about actions not being too easy. The reason why a game like Counter-Strike is very popular is related to the fact that there is a working and interesting virtual world (substantives), where you can perform a number of actions (verbs) that are well balanced. You get immediate feedback from your actions and the consequences are clear. This is similar to most other games, and indeed the focus in many a game review is often on so-called game play (a term to describe this fuzzy interaction of verbs). It is the verbs that really make computer games stand out from other media. Through the verbs you are immersed and engaged in an interesting world. The game needs to stay interesting in terms of substantives, but more importantly at its core, the things you do. The verbs.
The focus on verbs also means that when you are designing (learning) games the focus should also be on the rules of the games, which is very closely tied to the verbs. A rule is a clear principle for what happens in a system given a specific action (which is why most games transfer so well to computers). The rules don't define a substantive—substantives are simply there. However, the rules define the verbs and create delicate relationship with substantives, feedback, and rewards loops.
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In a learning perspective the verbs are what you will learn, but it will rely on how you set up the feedback and reward systems through the rules of the game. Rules are central to games, whether digital or analog, because they are the "language" of games. When we design learning games we should therefore be very focused on how the rules in the games works, because they define the core of the game experience, and ultimately the primary learning results.
A lot of the elements present in a good game relate to a good learning game. Without interesting substantives, and verbs you risk the game losing its fun factor. The loss of the fun can be related to either the verbs or substantives losing their attraction. It might be that you have seen and experienced all there is to the virtual world (substantives), but more than likely you have mastered the actions at your disposal. You can drive the same racing course, play the same strategy scenario or complete the same level, yet your attraction has not waned because you still see new ways of mastering the verbs even if the substantives are mostly the same.
So What Makes a Good Learning Game?
If we combine the above understanding of verbs and substantives with the criticisms leveled earlier at edutainment we can better appreciate what makes for a good learning games. We need to focus on three factors when designing strong learning games
Integration
When you play a learning game you need to make sure that learning and play are integrated. This means that to succeed in the game you also need to master the learning goals behind the game. In developing a learning game, on
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